


cold

by gay_writes_with_mac



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Death, Gen, everyone dies, i had to do something so i did this, written in about ten minutes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26272642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gay_writes_with_mac/pseuds/gay_writes_with_mac
Summary: Jesus feeling cold isn't something she'll ever stop thinking about.
Relationships: Tara Chambler & Jesus
Kudos: 5





	cold

“He has his  _ hands up,  _ Tara.”

Jesus had never let her do anything bad. He’d fought tooth and nail to stop her. They’d known each other for a week and he already knew that Tara wouldn’t have been able to live with herself after the war if she’d turned into what she found herself becoming. 

Everyone else had been okay with it. Even Rosita. She was getting colder and harder and more ready to kill, and in a war, that suited everyone. She was turning into a better tool for them, a better weapon, and no one was going to argue with that. No one even looked into her eyes anymore. Not after Denise.

But she’d met Jesus, and he’d guessed - accurately - that this wasn’t her. At that time she might have wanted it to be. But it wasn’t, and it didn’t become her because he didn’t let it. She hated him back then. She thought he was annoying and self-righteous and butting his stupid face where it didn’t belong. Maybe he had been. But he was right.

Her first night at Hilltop was the worst. She was alone, miserable, trapped in a fog in her own head she couldn’t break out of, and she didn’t even have Denise’s grave to sit by and try to get her clouded mind in order. So instead she’d just walked, pacing back and forth while stabs of dull pain shocked through her bad knee with every step, trying to clear her head.

She’d started around ten, and it had been past midnight and she’d still been pacing around when he’d stopped her. He’d practically materialized in front of her, coming out of the fields on silent steps. 

He hadn’t said anything. Just laid a warm hand on her shoulder and tugged her back towards his own trailer. He’d pushed her onto his overstuffed sofa, tossed her a quilt and a pillow, and left her to sleep.

His couch had been hers for the better part of a month until she finally felt like she could stomach being alone. He’d never pushed her to leave.

She’d never in her life felt so cared for.

She knew he was dead as soon as the horse came around the corner into view. Not hurt. They would have been rushing if he was hurt. Galloping over the fields, racing to get him back in time. Whatever had happened, she knew immediately that it was already far too late.

She couldn’t cry. He would have killed her for crying in front of all these people. People she had to lead, now. Jesus had been Maggie’s right hand man and she had been Jesus’s right hand man and now she was a leader and she had no idea who was going to stand at her side now. There was hardly anyone left.

She let her hands fall on his back, on either side of the blood stain, the rip in his shirt. He was cold.

Jesus was gone, and she was alone.


End file.
